Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic: جمهورية العراق lang: Jumhūrīyat Al-Irāq, Kurdish: كۆماری ﮦێراق Komarê Iraq ), is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert. It shares borders with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the west, Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, and Iran to the east. It has a very narrow section of coastline at Umm Qasr on the Persian Gulf. There are two major flowing rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the desert landscape that covers most of Western Asia.

The capital city, Baghdad, is in the center-east. Iraq's rich history dates back to ancient Mesopotamia. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is identified as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of writing. During its long history, Iraq has been the center of the Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Abbasid empires, and part of the Achaemenid, Macedonian, Parthian, Sassanid, Umayyad, Mongol, Ottoman, and British empires.

Since an invasion in 2003, a multinational coalition of forces, mainly American and British, has occupied Iraq. The invasion has had wide-reaching consequences: increased civil violence, establishment of a parliamentary democracy, the removal and execution of former authoritarian President Saddam Hussein, official recognition and widespread political participation of Iraq's Kurdish minority and Shi'ite Arab majority, significant economic growth, building of new infrastructure, and use of the country's huge reserves of oil. According to the 2007 Failed States Index, produced by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, Iraq has recently emerged as the world's second most unstable country, after Sudan, and the United States has recently referred to it in court proceedings as "an active theater of combat." Iraq is developing a parliamentary democracy composed of 18 governorates (known as muhafadhat).

Name

The origin of the name Iraq (Arabic: العراق , Turkish: Irak, Assyrian: ܥܪܐܩ, Kurdish: عيَراق) is disputed. There are several suggested origins for the name. One dates to the Sumerian city of Uruk (or Erech); another maintains according to Professor Wilhelm Eilers, "The name al-‘Irāq, for all its Arabic appearance, is derived from Middle Persian erāq lowlands".

Under the Persian Sassanid dynasty, there was a region called "Erak Arabi," referring to the part of the south western region of the Persian Empire that is now part of southern Iraq. The name Al-Iraq was used by the Arabs themselves, from the 6th century, for the land Iraq covers.